Modern telecommunication systems provide subscribers with a number of services. Long distance voice communication, digital communication and conference calling are representative of the available services provided to telecommunication subscribers. More recently, subscribers have been able to take advantage of voice mail services offered through their telecommunication services provider.
The most pertinent prior art regarding voice mail services is U.S. Pat. No. 4,371,752. This patent concerns electronic audio communication systems, in general, but does not address the unique aspects of voice mail services that are offered in conjunction with other telecommunication services.
Currently, the use of a voice mail service that is one of many telecommunication services offered by a provider has certain disadvantages when compared to a voice mail system at an independent interactive voice response system (IVRS). One problem is that since the voice mail service is only one of many, a subscriber may forget to check his voice mail for messages when accessing the telecommunication service. A second related problem is that even if the subscriber remembers to check for the existence of pending voice mail messages, accessing the voice mail service requires additional, sometimes cumbersome and time consuming steps to be taken by the subscriber.
For example, to access voice mail services, a subscriber typically originates a call to a telecommunication service network. The telecommunication service network lists the available services and prompts the subscriber to input a selection of the desired service by pressing a sequence of buttons on the subscriber's telephone unit. Once the telecommunication service system determines that the subscriber wishes to access voice mail services, control of the subscriber's call is transferred to a dedicated IVRS.
Upon receiving control of the subscriber's call, many voice mail systems are programmed to notify the subscriber of the number of pending or undelivered voice mail messages, while other voice mail systems require the subscriber to actively inquire as to the number of pending voice mail messages through the use of the subscriber's telephone unit. In either event, a significant problem exists. In order for a telecommunication service subscriber to receive a notification of the number of pending voice mail messages, the subscriber must take additional steps to access the voice mail system.
A further deficiency of the current integration of voice mail services with telecommunication service systems concerns the creation of new voice mail boxes for subscribers who do not have previously assigned voice mail boxes. Presently, in order for a subscriber to take advantage of voice mail services, he must file a request for an assigned voice mail box or the provider must automatically assign a voice mail box to every subscriber. The first alternative places an unnecessary burden on the subscriber, and the second alternative wastes the provider's resources by assigning voice mail boxes to subscribers who have no interest in using voice mail services.